A glorious Olympic opening ceremony suggests a world at peace. But burning villages in Georgia and South Ossetia reminds us that human conflict is never far away.

When I closed the last column with the statement ‘let the games begin’ I had no idea that the opening event would be so spectacular, so extraordinary or so total. For sure the visitors were being welcomed, Bush, Putin and Sarkozy amongst them. But also China was telling them, and the rest of us, that it was amongst the oldest societies on earth and certainly one of the most inventive.

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